Possumblog

The Churchill Wit

From the Bill Adler book of the same name, today's entry is:

Winston Churchill was never fond of Ramsay MacDonald, and in a speech in the House of Commons in 1931, had this to say about him:

I remember when I was a child being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder."

My parents judged the spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited fifty ears to see "The Boneless Wonder" sitting on the Treasury Bench.

When MacDonald became Prime Minister, Churchill observed:

We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compresssing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.